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Amur Tigers
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Camera trap photos from the Amur Tiger Center:
 *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author Same tiger from the other side:  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author
Young male tiger nicknamed 'Thunder' son of tiger 'Boris' ...
 *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author https://www.facebook.com/amurtigercenter...25/?type=3
The cat is back: Wild Amur tigers rebound in China, thanks to govt policies
There was a time when tiger expert Dale Miquelle wasn’t sure if there’d ever be a substantial population of Amur tigers (Panthera tigris altaica) in China again. In the 1990s, Miquelle and his colleagues estimated there to only be about eight of these big cats, also commonly referred to as Siberian tigers, left in northeastern China. But in the last eight years, change has come in leaps and bounds: recent camera trap footage reveals there are at least 55 Amur tigers living in forests in northeastern China. “Persistent efforts to protect tigers have paid off,” Miquelle, director of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Russia, told Mongabay in an email. “Change has not come quickly, but there has been slow, steady progress, and we see there are great opportunities for even more recovery.” According to a recent study in Biological Conservation, of which Miquelle is a co-author, camera trap footage taken between 2013 and 2018 identified 55 Amur tigers in four forested landscapes in northeastern China: Laoyeling, Zhang-Guangcailing, Wandashan, and the Lesser Khinghan Mountains. The scientists also genetically analyzed tiger scat, urine and hair to identify 30 tigers in the region. However, only Laoyeling is believed to support a breeding population, the paper suggests. The reason for the tigers’ sudden appearance in northeast China is due, in a large part, to a Chinese national policy called the Natural Forest Protection Project (NFPP), Miquelle said. “By stopping [the] harvest[ing] of trees in many parts of China, they essentially made whole villages whose economy was based on timber harvest economic wastelands,” Miquelle said. “Many of these people have had to leave the region to find new work, thereby pulling more and more people out of the forests.” With the timber industry shutting down, the forests were able to recover, and that’s “a big reason why tigers are expanding.”  *This image is copyright of its original author The NFPP was part of the Chinese government’s “huge sweeping policy change” that has shifted the country toward environmental stewardship and wildlife protection, Miquelle said. Another big change happened in 2001, when the government established at least three nature reserves, including the Hunchun National Nature Reserve, to provide critical habitat for Amur tigers and Amur leopards (Panthera pardus orientalis). And in 2016, China established the Northeast Tiger Leopard National Park (NTLNP), which spans nearly 15,000 square kilometers (5,800 square miles) in northeast China, encompassing the Hunchun National Nature Reserve and representing the largest tiger refuge in the world. “China is working hard to turn this [national park] into a model for conservation in China,” Miquelle said. Aimin Wang, director of WCS China, said that, overall, local people have been supportive of the environmental changes orchestrated by the government and the reemergence of tigers in the region. However, he said the establishment of the NTLNP has caused a few issues since people can no longer use this land to graze their cattle. “This is quite a big issue now and the government is looking for solutions for that,” Wang told Mongabay in a Zoom interview. Amur tigers are currently the most endangered of all big cat subspecies. In the 1930s, scientists believed there to be as few as 20 to 30 Amur tigers left, mainly in Russia. But drastic conservation measures led to a slight recovery of the subspecies, and the most recent population census in 2010 estimates there are about 350 Amur tigers living in the region. John Goodrich, chief scientist and tiger program director for Panthera, the global wild cat conservation organization, said the discovery of the 55 tigers in northeastern China is “great news” since species tend to fare better when their range isn’t limited to one country. “While they have done reasonably well there [in Russia], having all of a single species residing in one country is risky,” Goodrich told Mongabay in an email. “For example, Amur tiger numbers declined dramatically in the early 90s with the political and social challenges of Perestroika. Now the risk is spread over two countries.” The landscape near the Hunchun National Nature Reserve in China, which is inhabited by Amur tigers. Image by WCS.  *This image is copyright of its original author Amur tigers may have a foothold in northeastern China now, but they will face the same threats they would face anywhere in the world, Goodrich said. This includes poaching, prey loss, habitat loss and fragmentation, and human-wildlife conflict. Amur tigers will also face a number of threats linked to climate change, although northeastern Asia should continue to provide suitable habitat for the subspecies, Miquelle said. “A warming climate will mean that there may be more and better habitat in northeast China in the future (and definitely more potential habitat in Russia),” he said. “But with a more variable or drier climate, forest fires pose a serious threat to tiger habitat.” In their recent paper, Miquelle and his co-authors argue that northeastern China could support a much larger “meta-population” of Amur tigers if additional efforts are made to minimize human impacts, and to create ecological corridors between tiger habitats. They write that if appropriate measures are taken, the region could actually support about 310 tigers, including 119 breeding females. “There is still a long way to go to build a viable future for tigers in northeast China, but the situation looks good,” Miquelle said. “National leaders of both Russia and China have demonstrated a sincere interest in Amur tiger conservation, providing a strong foundation for their recovery.” https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/the-ca...-policies/
Camera trap photos of adult male tigers in the Khabarovsk Territory, 2020 ....
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A big, robust wild male tiger with a large skull and thick neck: ( Northeast China )
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FOOTAGE RECEIVED OF THE MOST NORTHERN TIGER IN HISTORY
A camera trap captured an Amur tiger on the coast of Wrangel Bay in the Khabarovsk Territory, not far from the Shantar Islands. In the modern history of observations, this is the northernmost point of the region, where it was possible to record a rare predator. The unique shots were received by the photographer Mikhail Korostelev. It is widely known that the Amur tiger is the northernmost subspecies of the tiger. Double fur and a thick layer of fat help him survive in conditions of constant freezing temperatures and high snow cover. Nevertheless, even such a serious "outfit" has a limit, and the animals included in the predator's diet do not really like to go so far to the north. There are, of course, among the tigers and real pioneers, or as they are also called pioneer tigers. Scientists managed to trace the path of one such predator in the north of the Khabarovsk Territory in 1999. Then the northernmost point of the trip fell on the Annensky waters. Now the data needs to be updated: a camera trap installed on the coast of Wrangel Bay in the Khabarovsk Territory recorded the Amur tiger almost 190 km to the north (the camera was set at 54 ° 16'58.0 "N) than in 1999. “In Wrangel Bay, Khabarovsk Territory, we observe bowhead whales and live in a camp on the shore. Around the taiga. And here in the taiga, for the last three years, I have been setting up a camera trap, photographing different animals: brown bears, reindeer, foxes, etc. - Mikhail Korostelev comments . - This year, leaving from there, I left the trap for another month. Leaving at the end of the season, a friend took the trap and brought it to me. Imagine my surprise when, looking through the catch, I saw a tiger in one of the frames!" What made the Amur tiger go so far north? Most often, young tigers and those males who, for some reason, have lost their own plot and have not been able to crowd out their neighbors, leave the limits of the range. “More often than not, we can talk about the dispersal or distant visits of tigers only in winter, when it is possible to fix the tracks of predators in the snow. We do not place random camera traps in places where even a tiger can potentially dwell, therefore, shots of such long visits of a male tiger to the north in modern history are a rare success of a photographer, ”comments Sergey Aramilev, general director of the Amur Tiger Center . - In appearance, the animal looks very good and we can say that it successfully finds food for itself. We will continue to collect information about the male and use it in our upcoming tiger census.” It is possible that “wanderers” are not only among tigers (just tigers are more noticeable) and that nature has laid a great meaning in this. Wandering provides natural dispersal and genetic diversity of populations. True, wandering life is fraught with great dangers. For long-distance travel, the tiger willingly uses roads, paths, clearings. This often leads to meetings with the person that do not always end peacefully. In this case, information about the tiger has already been transferred to the hunting supervision of the Khabarovsk tiger, which will monitor the safety of the unique northern tiger. http://amur-tiger.ru/ru/press_center/news/1641/ 
A good french documentary (yes, it does exist...) about the Amour tiger, his apex predator situation, and the neighbourhood with the human specy.
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No it's a documentary realised by Franz Hafner, an Austrian. I'm realizing now, Arte being a french-german channel, only the translation is in french. Perhaps you can see it through: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtO2l-fcKP4&t=2s Facebook http://www.facebook.com/artetv Twitter http://www.twitter.com/ARTEfr Instagram http://www.instagram.com/ARTEfr
Tiger 'Ochkarik' sleeping:
 *This image is copyright of its original author https://www.facebook.com/amurtigercenter...53/?type=3 Tiger in Bikin National Park:  *This image is copyright of its original author https://www.facebook.com/amurtigercenter...=3&theater
A male tiger and large male brown bear at the same scent marking tree. Notice, after the tiger marks (sprays urine) the tree, it heads off in the same direction the bear went. Possibly following the big bear? Maybe. Tigers are well known and reported to follow bears when hunting them.
Towards the end of this video (12:13) leading Amur tiger expert, Pavel Fomenko says that he examined a case of a tiger that killed a bear and dragged its carcass a kilometer:
From the old archives. Male tiger, Durmin river basin (Khabarovsk Territory), 2010
 *This image is copyright of its original author https://www.instagram.com/p/COo5MhPtQ1B/...e=ig_embed |
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